Paul Molitor has rallied the Twins to their best baseball in August, after Derek Falvey and his brain trust seemed to give up by trading Jaime Garcia and Brandon Kintzler at the nonwaiver July 31 deadline.

It wasn't easy, but Minnesota hit the big time 50 years ago as a sports market. The Gophers won a title. The North Stars and Bud Grant arrived. Pro basketball returned and the Twins nearly won a pennant.

With the golf season now likely to end with the Tour Championship on Labor Day weekend starting in 2019, there are potential new markets (including the Twin Cities) looking for places to host on a crowded summer schedule.

Dozier does everything well in the field, including turn the double play. He can run. He has outstanding power. He's a complete player. This is the second consecutive season that he's the best player on the club, and possibly the third in a row.

Last fall's Ryder Cup raised the prestige of Hazeltine to the heights of great American golf courses. An announcement will be made Friday that it will be home to the 2019 KPMG Women's PGA Championship.

It's a new world in the NHL since the lockout of 2004-05. Twelve years later, Commissioner Gary Bettman's well-balanced league has a playoff product that immediately hooks the customers with its intensity, and also its mystery.

The date was March 31, 1987, meaning this past Friday — the day the 2017 Twins left spring training for the Twin Cities — was the 30th anniversary of the Glad Man, of Gladwrench, of the Dazzle Man, becoming a major character in Minnesota's major league baseball story.

Friday's start by Brody Rodning for Minnesota State Mankato vs. UMD wasn't for the baseball scouts. It was for his mom, Tiffany. And as the game progressed, Brody had a message for teammates: "Just get me one."